An Intoduction

Thanks for finding the time to read my blog ,I will be updating it on a regular basis but 1st of all i would like to give you a background into my athletics career so far,Cheers

Joe Bailey


I came into running rather late , after playing football for my school team and a few local teams,at the age of 16 after leaving school i gave up football and took up "going out on the piss with my mates" .I only started running as a way of loosing weight and getting fit, as i was massive, jus short of 15 stone and only being 5'6!
When i first started i would maybe do 3 runs a week ,with each run being no more that 5k and it taking be the best part of 40 mins.As i kept this rate of running up and the weight coming off i gradually built up to running 5 times a week ,still just the 5k but it was getting faster and i was felling much more comfortable.I decided to enter the manchester 10k 2007 as a target to train to.With this distance in mind i would still do my 5k a day but now and again i would go down to the local gym on a saturday and do 10k on the treadmill which would take me at best 60 mins.I completed the Manchester 10k in a time of 50.43. My interest in running grew rapidly after my 1st racing experinace thus i was finding it easier to get out and train and obviously loosing more weight as a result.
After a few 5 k races and the mcr 10k the follwing year finishing in 40.36,Eventually i decided to start running for a club to boost my training and to be able to compete more,So i joined the club which was most local to me,which luckily enough was salford harriers.My 1st race running for salford was the saddleworth 6 miler finishing in 36.37 which was good enough for 24th place in a race which was won by Andi Jones.As the months went by my training got more consistent and i improved greatly doing more races and competing in the B team at the national 6 stage. In january 2009 i started training with Bob Merrell's group consisting of some of the best long distance athletes in the country,Obiously I was dead last in all the reps but it was an achivement in its self just training with these people.
By doing this type of training and training with the people i was training with i impoved greatly in the following months getting my 10k pb down massivley from 40.36 to 32.02 .To this day i continue to improve, consistinly running in the salford harries A team and representing Greater manchester in this years intercounties XC, with Pbs at 10k at 31.00 and 5k at 15.42(not done one in ages) and 5000m at 15.04.